Time is a Flat Circle

I finished my latest “just for fun” quilt! The second project in Savor Each Stitch by Carolyn Friedlander is the Bullseye pattern. I call mine “Time is a Flat Circle”.

Of course, I put my own spin on it (har har). This quilt was hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, machine pieced and machine quilted.

I selected Essex Linen blend in Charcoal for my background, and combined it with a nine-piece fat quarter bundle of Carolyn’s Instead fabric collection. (Gotham Quilts still has 7 of the prints in stock.)

The appliqué is created with 10″ squares, so I could only get two from each fat quarter. That meant I had to get creative if I wanted each circle to be made from just one color. Challenge accepted.

The original design calls for each circle to have a complete outside line. This means that you need 4 of the largest arc complete for each section, but if I can only cut two, I come up short. My solution involved using as much of each 10″ square as possible.

From the leftover section, I was able to cut a small arc or two, depending on which of the sets of templates I used.

I was very satisfied with the amount of fabric left over after cutting these additional pieces.

It took me a few months to appliqué all of the blocks. I worked on it heavily at the start of quarantine, and also during our vacation this summer. It has been a sanity saver for me.

I completed the circles using embroidery. A simple running stitch did the trick. I started with the upper left circle, and moved across and down. The running stitch was so enjoyable that each block received a little bit more embroidery as I progressed.

This project was very engrossing, even while working on other deadline projects. I was thinking about a title other than Bullseye. Since I spaced my arcs out, that didn’t work for me anymore.

I’m not sure why it popped in, but I remembered a line from True Detective that I had always liked. Is there anything better than philosophy recited by Mathew McConnaughey? Especially when he looks like a mortal instead of a golden god.

The quote is:

Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done, or will do, we will do over and over and over again — Forever.

Friedrich Nietzsche

I work pretty hard to be an eternal optimist, but this quote settled in my head years ago, and really resonates, especially right now. I feel worried about everything right now, and I’m a little scared. At least I’ll have a nice collection of quilts with all of this hand work I’m doing.

I wrote out the quote a few times, spreading the words across the blocks. Then I embroidered it onto the blocks. I’m not a master embroiderer, so I just traced my hand writing using a split stitch.

It’s hard to read in photos, but I made it that way intentionally. It’s actually hard to read in person, too. I wanted the message to be a little bit subtle, but maybe not this subtle.

The backing is a Peppered Cotton in grey. Since I wanted to maintain the drape of Essex. I went with Quilter’s Dream Orient batting – it’s nice and soft, and will continue with the lovely drape of the fabrics.

I worried about quilting it for a while, until Jodi Robinson released a set of edge to edge quilting designs. Circle Pop was the perfect fit. The original size was 2″. I scaled it up to 10″, to better match the scale of the appliqué.

I was very entertained by how the pattern matched up when I rolled the quilt. It doesn’t take much some days to make me smile.

I decided to use up the large pieces of my original fabrics that were left over for the binding. I really wanted to bind it with Essex, but a little research made me worry that it might shrink too much. So, there is a little bit of Essex in the binding, just as a test. This way, if it falls apart, I only have a small repair.

I’ll be continuing my Savor Each Stitch adventure soon. I’m almost done with my current appliqué project. The next quilt in the book is the Circle Lattice. I have my plan to make it unique, and I’m excited to get started.

If you missed it, you can see my Arc quilt here. My husband says he likes to look at it – he sees a slow motion wedgie in progress. It’s appreciation of my art that keeps me going.